The Board of Education changed the wording in its policy this week to permit New Providence Police to access the district’s electronic surveillance systems, said Board Administrator and Secretary James Testa.

As in the rest of the state, school district officials here said the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., on Dec. 14. prompted them to reconsider their school security options. In Hunterdon County, Flemington-Raritan’s school board could soon consider providing real-time access to its school security cameras to Flemington and Raritan Township police, according to Superintendent Gregory Nolan.

While the board has not received direction on the issue from the state School Board Association, Nolan said, “It’s something on our agenda to discuss, among (security) topics to review and consider."

The state Department of Education has no policy on police access to real-time school security feed, according to spokeswoman Barbara Morgan. “It is a local issue,” she said.

Cameras have been part of the “security systems in the high school for many years now and outside the elementary schools,” said Testa. He said the new policy wording “allows police to monitor the cameras.”

In the past, the New Providence Police have had access to the camera feed by simply going to the school board offices, which are in the same building as the police department.

However, after the Connecticut shooting, the board reviewed its security measures and decided to make the change so “if there was any type of incident, they could access the cameras very quickly.”

School officials spoke to Police Chief Anthony D. Buccelli Jr. and concluded it was “in the best interests of the community to have the police able to access the cameras” at the department.

Buccelli said while the department could have always gotten access to the cameras, “When something happens like what happened in Connecticut … time is of the essence. We wanted to streamline our operations.”

Watchung Hills Regional High School in Somerset does not allow direct feed to police. "In my view, situations that would warrant access or monitoring to our security cameras could be limited to emergency police responses to campus, if desired," Superintendent of Schools Frances Stromsland said.

“We have worked with our police departments regarding security and surveillance issues," Superintendent of Schools for the School District of the Chathams Michael LaSusa said. "At present, we have our feeds sent to multiple locations throughout the district, including to facilities not attached to any school building. That will enable remote access and surveillance from multiple locations by both police and school officials, in the event of a crisis."

Flemington Police have had an officer stationed at Reading-Fleming Intermediate School every school day since Monday, Dec. 17, three days after the Newtown shootings. Elsewhere in Hunterdon, Clinton Township police and Lebanon Township police patrol North Hunterdon and Voorhees high schools respectively, but the police departments do not have real time access to either school’s security camera feed, district spokeswoman Maren Smagala said.

“In an emergency, an administrator can lend them his or her laptop to view the security feed with our supervision,” Smagala said.

That doesn’t mean the district won’t decide to provide police with a real-time feed in the future, Smagala said. “We would want to examine all legal and privacy issues first, since you would be talking about having a non-district employee with access to view students and staff.”

In New Providence, part of the reason behind streamlining the department’s operations is that it has “been downsized in manpower by three officers. The department went to 23 from 26 officers,” Buccelli said, adding that those officers are on the road and on patrol.

The department no longer has its part-time school resource officer, but that doesn’t mean police and school officials aren’t working together.

“We work closely with the schools, we hold drills on a regular basis and are always looking for better ways to improve," Buccelli said. "We have a very good relationship with them. It helps that (the school board is) in our building. It helps with the contact and the ability to discuss whatever issues are at hand.”